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    Kindred
    Kindred
    Kindred
    Audiobook9 hours

    Kindred

    Written by Steve Robinson

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Jefferson Tayte is good at finding people who don’t want to be found. For years he has followed faint genealogical trails to reunite families—and uncover long-hidden secrets. But Tayte is a loner, a man with no ties of his own; his true identity is the most elusive case of his career.

    But that could all be about to change. Now Tayte has in his possession the beginnings of a new trail—clues his late mentor had started to gather—that might at last lead to his own family. With Professor Jean Summer, his partner in genealogical sleuthing, he travels to Munich to pick up the scent. But the hunt takes them deep into dangerous territory: the sinister secrets of World War II Germany, and those who must keep them buried at any cost.

    When their investigations threaten to undermine a fascist organisation, Tayte and Summer know time is running out. Can they find their way to the dark heart of a deadly history before they become its latest victims?

    This is the fifth book in the Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery series but can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateApr 12, 2016
    ISBN9781511365703
    Kindred
    Author

    Steve Robinson

    Steve Robinson drew upon his own family history for inspiration when he imagined the life and quest of his genealogist hero, Jefferson Tayte. The talented London-based crime writer, who was first published at age sixteen, always wondered about his own maternal grandfather. “He was an American GI billeted in England during the Second World War,” Robinson says. “A few years after the war ended he went back to America, leaving a young family behind, and, to my knowledge, no further contact was made. I traced him to Los Angeles through his 1943 enlistment record and discovered that he was born in Arkansas…” Robinson cites crime-writing and genealogy amongst his hobbies—a passion that is readily apparent in his work. He can be contacted via his website, www.steve-robinson.me, his blog at steverobinsonauthor.blogspot.com, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SteveRobinsonAuthor.

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    Reviews for Kindred

    4/5

    115 ratings85 reviews

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    • 3/5
      just don't enjoy supernatural stuff
    • 1/5
      Too boring. Had to put it down.
    • 3/5
      3.5***

      Edana is a young Black woman living with her new husband in their new home in 1976 Los Angeles. While unpacking books she suddenly feels dizzy. Dropping to her knees in a fugue state, she awakens to the screams of a child. She’s on a riverbank and the boy, Rufus, is in danger of drowning. What she doesn’t realize is that she has been transported in time and place to 1812 Maryland. Rufus is the only son of a white plantation owner, who is none too happy to see a “nigger” hunched over his child. But before either Dana or the man can get any further explanation, she is instantly back in her living room – muddy and wet, but alive.

      Thus begins a series of time travels for Dana, all precipitated by some crisis in Rufus’s life that puts him in mortal danger. Dana has no control over these episodes, but quickly determines to be prepared with a bag of clothes, and such modern conveniences as aspirin, antiseptic, pen and paper; she keeps the bag tied to her waist, just in case.

      This was an inventive and interesting plot, and I was caught up in the story of this ante-bellum Maryland plantation and those living and working on it. But I was somewhat disappointed in the execution. I did not think that Butler sufficiently developed her characters. Rufus and his father were one-sided, Margaret miraculously morphed from a mean-spirited tyrant to a gentle old woman. Kevin’s story is never fully explored or explained. Dana acts neither like a modern-day black woman, nor like a submissive, scared slave. While I understand the situation would lead to confusion, Butler could have done a better job of giving her some internal dialogue to explore her feelings and emotions. The dialogue was repetitive; I really got tired of the constant reminders to “watch what you say.”

      I’m glad I’ve finally read this work, however. Butler shines a light on a very dark period in America’s history. The picture isn’t pretty. There is a lot of violence, hatred, ignorance and cruelty depicted, and some of it is just gut-wrenchingly difficult to read. I do like the metaphor of the scars carried from the past to the future. I can definitely see why this is frequently chosen by book clubs.
    • 4/5
      Dana, a woman living in California in the 1970’s (when the book was written), has some sort of fainting fit and wakes up in a woods, where she sees a boy drowning in a river and she saves him, before another fit returns her home. Soon afterwards, the pattern is repeated – faint, save the boy (the same boy, but now older, and a different threat), go home, and then it happens again. She gradually realizes she has some sort of spiritual link with him – she is a sort of “fairy godmother”, who saves him from death repeatedly during his youth. This is all very well, except that Dana is black, and the boy, Rufus, is the son of a slave-owning white family in pre-Civil War Maryland. Rufus’ family recognize her magical role in his life, but still, she is black and therefore they do see her as a slave. They try to keep her with them, to protect him better and also to work for them. Dana can’t control her transitions between the two worlds, so she has no choice but to live as a slave when she is in 19th Century Maryland, as she certainly can’t go wandering around, without any papers or other proof that she is anything but a runaway slave. She doesn’t know how long she will be there on any given visit, so she has to make the best of it.By the device of having Dana’s visits set years apart (although they seem only days or weeks apart in 1970’s time), we see how life develops on the plantation – the slave children she meets on early visits grow up, marry, have children, or are less lucky and are sold away from loved ones, or try to run away (usually unsuccessfully). Rufus develops from a boy who behaves reasonably decently towards black people (including Dana, of course, who tries to encourage his better behaviour) into a man who is as callous, selfish and brutal as his father was before him. There’s also a side plot involving Dana’s modern day husband, Kevin, who is white, and who has accidentally accompanied her to Maryland as he was holding on to her when she time-shifted. They get separated; he winds up staying there much longer than she does, and is changed by his experience of being a white man in that time, and one who is against slavery.It’s a good story – I was always interested to see how things had changed each time she went back, and how she would cope, even though it was all pretty depressing. The ending also made sense, providing closure to the story. It’s a fairly quick read, and I think pretty much anyone would enjoy it.
    • 5/5
      Despite being fairly well read in science fiction and fantasy, I had not read Butler before, and I had specifically avoided this book. In many ways, it's the perfect read for me: a strong female protagonist, historical fiction that feels genuine and accurate, a time travel conceit, etc. But I also knew this book would make me uncomfortable and angry. Over the years, I read the summary more than once, considered buying the book, and put it down again. I didn't want to face the ugly racism in those pages.But when Kindred was selected as a book club read, I decided it was time to overcome my fears. In part, it's because I'm writing a novel that also delves heavily into historical fiction and racism and gender roles. I figured that if I'm going to write on the subject, I could learn more from a grand dame of the science fiction field.Kindred was everything I expected and feared. It's beautifully done. Every character is complicated and genuine and sympathetic, even in their awfulness. A lot of people write historical fiction that touches on slavery. Butler, however, made this work shine because she puts everything in proper context. Slave owning is shown as despicable and awful, but she also manages to show how the mentality of a slave owner is created from childhood on up. This is done through Rufus, the little red-haired boy who Dana is pulled through time to save again and again. The moral situations in the book are dire and terrible and very real in their complications. Beatings, rape, and death are all very present.When I finished reading, I realized I had just finished a horror book. Real horror. About the dark potential of humanity and how easily we can accept things like slavery and ownership.This is a book I will keep on my shelf because it's a classic and it's a masterpiece, but I don't think I ever want to sit down and read it again.
    • 5/5
      powerful and raw, this is a sci-fi book that even non-sci-fi lovers, like myself, can enjoy. my only complaint is that i didn’t read it sooner!Edana, or Dana as she is nicknamed, is a modern black woman married to a white man, both struggling writers. on her 26th birthday, Dana is inexplicably transported into the South of the early 1800’s where slavery is still practiced in full force. she is “called” there by a red-headed boy named Rufus, who is drowning and she saves his life. ironically, he turns out to be one of her slave-owning ancestors and it becomes clear that it is her duty to protect him. this begins the series of time travels, as Dana is called back each time Rufus is in danger, 6 times over the years to save his nearly pathetic life. each time causes Dana to be stuck in the world that does not welcome her, until her own life is threatened and she is spirited back to her own time. in this way, she learns what it means to be a slave, a woman, a wife. as such, expect a tale with lots of life and lots of near-death, lots of fear and raw emotion. "I hadn’t known quite as well then what there was to fear. I had never seen a captured runaway like Alice. I had never felt the whip across my own back. I had never felt a man’s fists."with startling honesty and depth, Butler grabs you from the beginning and never really lets go, even after the book is over. there is so much strength and conflict that is nearly overwhelming, between characters, between and within the races, and between the times. on top of that, Kindred is well constructed AND well written, bringing together so many powerful themes into a profound tale of fiction: abuse, racial and sexual tensions, literacy, physical and emotional courage, which all serve to show us what it might have been like to be a slave. "My back began to ache dully, and I felt dully ashamed. Slavery was a long slow process of dulling."the relationship between Dana and Rufus is one that caused the most conflict for me as a reader. as much as i didn’t want to, i found myself in the same position as Dana, having compassion for Rufus. his upbringing and surroundings pushed and pulled him into the expected behaviors of a white slave-holder – sometimes abusive, cruel and unpredictable. and yet, it was so obvious that he wanted to be good. in his own way, he loved his slaves, and this becomes pivotal in the outcome of the book. i kept thinking of the quote “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”the other struggle that i felt with overwhelming surprise was how easy it had become for Dana to fit in as a slave. she finds herself conflicted with how seemingly “real” the time there feels and she comes to even call it home. during one of her reminisces comparing her two lives, she explains that “(Slavery’s) time was a sharper, stronger reality. The work was harder, the smells and tastes were stronger, the danger was greater, the pain was worse.” and i felt that, too. it made my life in this century feel less significant, much like i imagine she felt when she returned to the 1970’s apartment that she shared with her husband.Kindred is not a feel good book, nor an easy read, but altogether, this was a stunning work, one that begs to be read and that i would recommend for everyone.
    • 3/5
      Dana is unstuck in time and travels back and forth to Georgia in the 1840s where, as an African-American woman, she is treated as a person with few rights. (She maintains that she is a free Black from New York). Dana's life becomes entangled with a white man, Rufus, who she knowsis destined to be her great-grandfather. She time-travels without warning or intent; each visit lasts longer and becomes more dangerous.The premise is unique and allows the author Butler to imagine American slavery first-hand. Yet this reader found the writing uninspired and the depiction of life under slavery both over-wrought and unconvincing. In fairness, the book may get better but it didn't seem worth the time and effort to finish.
    • 4/5
      Set in 1979 and 1819, the book follows Dana, an aspiring African American novelist, who begins experiencing abrupt time displacements over the course of a few weeks. Each time she suffers a strange dizziness, she is sent back in time to a slave plantation. It becomes apparent that her travel is driven by impending danger to one of her ancestors, the son of a plantation owner, named Rufus Weylin. In order to guarantee her own birth, Dana must save Rufus over and over again.

      When Dana does return to 1976, she and her white husband, Kevin, scramble to understand what is going on and to pack a bag of supplies for Dana to keep on her person at all times in case she is summoned again. Kevin forges papers that Dana can use to prove that she is free, although Dana learns that in reality a patroller inspecting the papers of a free black most would most often tear up the papers, re-enslave the free black, and sell him/her for personal profit. Dana does more research on her family history to learn more about the people she meets in the past. Kevin puts together a bag of aspirin, antiseptic, and other first-aid supplies. But mostly they huddle together in terror as Dana attempts to treat her wounds and prepare for her next trip. Each time she travels back in time, several years have gone by in the 19th century, but only several hours or a couple of days pass in 1976.

      This story is less about time travel and more about slavery in the southern states from a future 1970s perspective. I really enjoyed the merge of science fiction and historical fiction and while I've never read anything else by Olivia Butler I will definitely take a look at what she has to offer.
    • 5/5
      Kindred was tough to put down. Both exciting and thought-provoking. One of the better books I've read in a while.
    • 5/5
      Dana Franklin and her husband Kevin have just moved into a new house when Dana mysteriously begins to travel back in time. At first she spends just a few hours in the past, returning to her own time (1976) to discover that only seconds have elapsed in the present. Dana has no idea how she gets from her home in California to early 1800s Maryland, but it seems it has something to do with her ancestor, Rufus. As Dana's trips to the past lengthen, they become more dangerous for her. Dana is an African American woman, Maryland is a slave state, and Rufus and his family are white slave owners...Dana's story starts at the end. Readers know from the beginning that Dana is back in her own time, has been reunited with her husband, and has experienced a trauma that will stay with her for the rest of her life. The awareness of something dreadful lurking in the background makes it a difficult book to put down. Butler uses Dana to explore the slave system. Between her trips to the past, Dana has time to reflect on her experience and use what she's learned to prepare for what she's likely to encounter on subsequent trips, weighing the possible consequences of each course of action open to her. She learns that there are no good choices. The slave system is an unredeemable evil, and its psychological bonds are sometimes stronger than the physical ones. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book on a whim after reading the back blurb in a book store and being utterly unable to stop thinking about it again. Something in the blurb mesmerized me, and I knew I had to know more.

      It's a fascinating story that ended up leaving me tied to my couch for 3 hours straight while I read it. It gives you a very unusual insight into the lives of black people in the South in the early 19th century, and how an otherwise decent white person can become so much a product of his time that he turns cruel too, because that's all he has ever known.

      Octavia Butler left a number of things unexplained - why did Dana suddenly start travelling in time on her 26th birthday? Why not before? And once she did start, why did the travels occur so quickly, one after another, rather than spread out over several years? Why did she lose her arm (no spoiler, this happens in the prologue)? And will she continue travelling after the events described in the book occurs? These unanswered questions did bother me somewhat, but not enough to distract from the powerful message of the plot itself. I'm glad the book wasn't any longer than it was (267 pages) - I'm not sure I could have borne it.
    • 5/5
      I'll need some time to process, but this book is a perfect example of what I was looking for in my reading differently project.
    • 4/5
      Kindred by Octavia Butler is an unusual combination of slave memoir and time-travel fantasy. The story of a 1970’s era black woman being bounced back into 1815 Maryland makes for a very interesting read. In a time that is rife with danger for a black woman on her own, Dana finds herself again and again pulled back to rescue an ancestor of hers. That this ancestor is a slave owning white man is just one of the many things that horrify her. While Dana is trapped in the past she experiences first hand the uncertainty, violence and dehumanization that a slave goes through. Even though she comes to the past to save this ancestor, he repays her with cruelty.Originally published in 1979, Kindred is considered the first science fiction book written by a black woman and, as it touches up subjects like race, man’s inhumanity to man and a person’s sense of worth it is still relevant today. I did feel the author’s underlying sense of anger and outrage that these injustices existed in America, and I also felt that by pointing out the flaws of the past, she knew full well that many of these flaws are still in existence.Other than perhaps feeling that this book tended to oversimplify some complicated issues and never feeling all that attached to the main character, this was a memorable read and I loved the author’s use of time-travel to showcase her story of prejudice and injustice.
    • 4/5
      Four stars instead of five because the writing is pretty pedestrian. But Butler does an amazing job with the characters. It's clear that she really thought through the nineteenth-century world, and what it would be like to encounter that world with a twentieth-century mindset. It's really more of a thought experiment than a novel, but a really really good one. This book will stay with me for a long time.
    • 5/5
      Awesome. Octavia E. Butler's best, and probably an American history/scifi classic.
    • 4/5
      The story involves a staple of science fiction--time travel--and Octavia Butler is famous as a science fiction writer--considered by many one of the greats alongside writers such as Ursula LeGuin, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. This particular novel isn't science fiction though, and you may be disappointed if you go in with that expectation. Dana, a modern black woman is married to a white man, Kevin, and they've just moved into their first home together in 1976 when for the first time she's transported into antebellum Maryland where she saves the life of Rufus Weylin--her slave-holding ancestor. There's no technical or scientific explanation for this displacement. I think that itself is deliberate, both to put the focus on the situation of slavery and to heighten the horror of the situation, to make us feel that above all slavery is about a lack of control, of a life disrupted. Slavery is what is examined in this novel--the implications or paradoxes of time travel is not.I think if you're going to peg what genre this belongs in besides historical fiction, it's horror. The book begins "I lost an arm on my last trip home." That signals a lot about this story. The almost Kafkayesque fantastical and symbolic aspect of the book, and we know from the first line that Dana will survive but not without horrible loss. I think a lot of what I found so gripping in the book is that it invites you to imagine what it would be like as a modern person to be a slave. I've read reviews that fault Dana for being too much of a victim, too passive, and considers her selfish for not killing Rufus just because he's her own ancestor.I think that's to misread the point of the book--that there were few opportunities or options and it's too easy to condemn everyone who didn't turn out to be a Sojourner Truth or Frederick Douglas. Rufus starts out an innocent--only five-years-old. Dana's bounced back and fourth into later period of his life, and we see the slave system corrupt him, despite him starting out with blacks, including Dana, who are important in his life and he cares about, even if that is twisted. Just as Dana herself is damaged in her relatively brief time there. We see two parallel movements, as Rufus is shaped into a slave master and Dana a slave. Dana spends more and more time in slavery as and because she becomes more adept surviving within it. In terms of arresting historical detail and engrossing me completely in the book, this one is a winner--a page turner.It's short of amazing for me though, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it was signaling the end right from the prologue. Given the pattern set up early on and what just about every adult American knows of slavery, the plot's shape and the development of the characters was predictable. There are no surprises here, and though Butler's a good writer, she wasn't in Kindred a particularly arresting one, and though I found the story suspenseful, I never found it moving.I've tried one other book by Butler--The Parable of the Sower. That book truly is science fiction. Unfortunately, I found it unbearably preachy, and I found it harder to buy into Parable's future than into Kindred's past. I'm glad I read Kindred, but I wouldn't read it again, and I won't be reading more of Butler after this.
    • 5/5
      This was one of those books that held me so tightly that I couldn't put it down even when I really wanted to. I felt I couldn't bear to find out what happened next, but I had to. It was a wonderfully set up meditation on what slavery does to the people who are slaves and the people who are masters. I read it sometime last year, but it still feels fresh in my mind.
    • 5/5
      one Ms. Butler's best. I enjoy a book that can take you into it, transport you to that time or place, this one does.
    • 5/5
      I'd had it around, never read it, and really liked it. It reminds me of magical books I read as a child: the magic just works, you don't know why, though you can figure out its rules. I've stocked up on more of her books.
    • 5/5
      Time travel is a standby of science fiction but here it is used as a means of exploring the psychology and sociology of slavery in America. This novel was published in 1979 and the protagonist is an African-American woman whose travels back in time to the antebellum south are linked to a white ancestor. This ancestor pulls the protagonist back at moments when he fears for his life and she returns to the present when she faces deathly circumstances. These two characters are locked in an relationship that generates many morally and ethically challenging as well as bloody and fearsome situations.

      The author was an African-American woman and I look forward to reading other books that she wrote.
    • 4/5
      I wanted to read more Octavia Butler as soon as I read one of her short stories, and I was definitely not disappointed. In Kindred, a modern African American woman is repeatedly compelled back through time to save the life of a white, slave-owning ancestor with whom she has a complicated relationship.I often love time travel novels because the give such detailed, engrossing looks at historical events from the perspective of a modern person's experience. I realize that it's important not to take history out of context, but it's always compelling and almost always educational in a way that sticks when you can follow modern characters back in time. I'll have to think more about that later.Meanwhile, the antebellum characters in this novel are definitely of their time. The setting is brutal, and the people are both just as human and inhumane as the real deal. I was compelled all the way through it, but I was relieved when the end came. Great read.
    • 5/5
      Dana and Kevin Franklin are a young married couple, both writers, who have finally started making enough money from their writing to support themselves. They buy a new house in a small suburb of Los Angeles in 1976 but before they can settle in and finish unpacking, Dana starts feeling nauseated and dizzy and then disappears completely from her home, reappearing on the banks of a river in an unfamiliar place where she notices that a small boy is drowning. The boy is Rufus Weylin and he is her great grandfather many times removed.

      After Dana saves Rufus’ life she is returned to her home in California where her husband is skeptical of her experiences even though he cannot explain how she disappeared right in front of his eyes. Over the next days and weeks Dana and Kevin’s lives undertake a strange turn since Dana never knows when she is going to disappear into where she finds out is early 19th century Baltimore, a place fraught with danger for her because she is a black woman and Baltimore, at the time of course, is a slave state.

      Dana’s comings and goings in 1819 Maryland seem to be predicated on saving the life of her young ancestor, Rufus Weylin, who is prone to getting into life threatening scrapes. He has to live to father a child named Hagar who is the forerunner of Dana’s branch of the family. When he is young, Dana has hopes that she will be able to help shape Rufus’ personality thereby helping the slaves on the Weylin plantation. But despite her best efforts to shape Rufus into a “humane” plantation & slave owner, Rufus is still a white man of his time with considerable power over the lives of other people. Rufus enjoys Dana’s company and counsel, and even loves her (and others much to their detriment) after a fashion, but he is also angry, calculating, capricious, vindictive and dangerous. He and Dana have a tenuous relationship based on their mutual understanding of the threat that each poses to the other (she can always refuse to save him and let him die, and he can subject her to any number of the more severe aspects of slavery), but Rufus is used to having his way all the time. How much can Dana compromise and still retain her own freedom?

      Kindred is a compelling read and each time I have picked it up I have not been able to put it down in spite of knowing the way that the story ends. It’s one of those books where each time I read it I come away from it with more than when I read it the first time around. I marvel at Octavia Butler’s genius in being able to weave so many threads together to create a story which is both complex and disturbing on so many levels.

      Unless you are living through a particular situation or time period, or are in someone else’s shoes, it’s very hard to judge people and the culture of their times. I also feel like it’s even hard to judge things in our own times, but that’s another story. There are some things in life that are universally wrong, and slavery and the the system that it spawned is definitely in that category, but when Dana goes back she is constantly trying to navigate a system of wrongs to ensure that her family survives, and to ensure her own personal freedom and safety. She is trying to preserve her love for her husband Kevin, which turns out to be no easy task considering he is a white man, and though he vehemently believes that slavery is wrong and more sympathetic than the average white male in 1819, he has a very different experience than she does, and doesn’t experience slavery as personally as she can.

      The characters and their relationships to one another are super complex and they parallel each other all over the place, which I noticed before but not as strongly as when I read it this time around. Kevin and Dana love each other and are in a relationship, something that is incomprehensible in 1819, but still it’s the kind of relationship that Rufus would have probably liked to have had with Alice, a free born black woman whose enslavement is his fault, and whom he will he will take by force to have create the child that is Dana’s ancestor. Dana is always in the untenable situation of wanting something that will ensure her family line though it comes at a high cost to someone whom she has grown to love and genuinely wants to have her own autonomy.

      Butler is able to weave all of the details of plantation life into the narrative from the cookhouse, and the whippings and punishments of slaves, to the plantation celebrations and the philosophy of holding the slaves- and it’s such a personal book! All of the characters have stories, and you get to see so many of them play out. But even better she illustrates all the contradictions, horrors and inhumanity of owning other people. This isn’t a black and white book, but gray all over the place. Should Dana do things that will risk her life and her return to 1976 in order to do good in 1819? What’s the greatest cost to herself that she will bear and how much of her “1976″ self will she compromise in order to fit in and be safe in 1819? There are so many questions and not enough clear answers, and definitely not enough answers which made me happy as I was reading this. Dana is the perfect guide and proverbial “walk in another’s shoes” because she is the modern reader (Kevin also, to a lesser extent and from a diffrent perspective) stuck in what’s for her a hellish time in history and struggling to nagvigate and execute her modern ideas/self among the charm and barbarity of another time.
    • 4/5
      What do you do when, in order to exist, you have to allow the rape of another character, a woman just like you? Yeah. That's just ONE of the big questions being asked in this novel.I'm sorry to say that it's taken me this long to get around to Octavia Butler's books, if the others are as powerful as Kindred. Dana, a woman living in then-present-day (1976) Los Angeles who is married to an older white man, is pulled back in time to 1812 Maryland, which was then a "Southern" state. She finds herself administering mouth-to-mouth to a young white boy (Rufus), and then facing a shotgun in the hands of his angry father. Before anything else can happen, though, she's pulled back to Los Angeles, where she and her husband Kevin try to make sense out of what just happened.Turns out that Rufus will grow up to be her ancestor, and Dana keeps getting sent back in time when he's in grave danger. This sets up the situation mentioned above: for Dana to exist, Rufus must rape one of his slaves, Alice, who has already asked Dana for help in escaping. This is the crux of the book, in my opinion.Along the way, Butler explores slave culture in general, how easy it is to adapt to a horrible situation (for whites and blacks) when your survival depends on it, and the dynamics of a marriage, especially when there are racial and age imbalances, among other themes. This was one of the first non-comedic time-travel novels (yeah, I'm looking at you, Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court). In 2015, Kindred might seem a little heavy-handed and obvious in places, but back in 1976, it would have been closer to groundbreaking. For one thing, Dana's travel back to 1812 isn't under her control, unlike books such as H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. For another, it's one of the few with a female protagonist, and it does an outstanding job of countering the typical "go back or forward in time and have adventures" trope that male characters typically do--in many times and in many places, there have been consequences to being female, and especially being black and female. The book also shines a light on the prevailing culture in a crystal clear, nonromantic way. I haven't such an immersive portrayal in a time-travel book since Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, which was actually published later (1992).One interesting tidbit: 1976 also saw the publication of Alex Hailey's seminal book Roots, a huge hit in both book and later TV miniseries forms. People looking for an education on the early black experience in the U.S. could do worse that diving into these two books published in the country's Bicentennial year.
    • 5/5

      This is a powerful book. In simple prose, free from literary flourishes, Butler tells an amazing tale. Or rather, she doesn't tell the tale: she allows her central character, Dana, to tell the story for her. Written as a memoir, the story unfolds entirely from Dana's point of view. The reader is there with her as she describes her experiences of travel in space and time, from her present as a young black writer in 1976 California to life on a plantation in antebellum Maryland. Dana’s experiences are all the more startling because they just happen: there is no explanation of why or how. Indeed, no explanation is possible, because Dana doesn't know why this "thing" keeps happening to her or how it happens.

      The language of the novel is matter of fact and economical: not a word is wasted. Through Dana's descriptions and simple dialogue, the reader experiences the brutality of slavery. All of the violence and the degradation is there, described unflinchingly, but neither sensationally nor gratuitously. Characterisation is also strong: both Dana and the other characters with whom she interacts are real and complex – not mere stereotypes. The language and characters carry the themes of the novel in a way that makes this book one of the most memorable I have read for a long time.

      This is a book which I probably would never have read but for Goodreads. I found it on a friend’s bookshelf and thought it sounded interesting. How glad I am that it came my way.
    • 4/5
      This is a time traveler/historical fiction book. Dana has been recalled to south in 1819 by a remote ancestor when he is in trouble--this is a surprise for them both. She leaves and re-appears many times in the story. My only complaint is that the ending, while predictable, seemed hurried compared to the leisurely pace of the rest of the book.
    • 5/5
      On October 5, 2004, Octavia E. Butler visited my graduate university to give a lecture and book signing. I was really impressed by her. She actually spent several hours at the university, giving a public interview with one of the professors, then a short lecture to a large auditorium, then a book signing. I even skipped class in order to attend.The interview was really fascinating, where Butler answered questions about how she worked to write Kindred and how she felt about the characters and how it turned out. The professor kind of threw Butler for a loop once, when she pulled an interpretation of the book out of left field, and Butler blinked, and slowly said she didn't write with that interpretation at all in mind, but that she was of the opinion that any interpretation the reader reaches is a valid one. I thought she handled the question particularly well.In the lecture, Butler talked mostly about how she writes, her writing style, her relationship with her fans, and her upcoming book, Fledgling. The signing afterwards was very informal, but I didn’t try to stay and chat. Butler had lots of professors and awestruck students who were all trying to catch her attention. I got my book signed, said a polite thank you, and left happy.Fledgling turned out to be the last book Butler wrote. She died unexpectedly in early 2006. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the chance to meet her.The book: Was good. A time-traveling story dealing with love, gender, race, racism, and responsibility. It was beautifully and rather painfully done. I never would have found it if it hadn’t been for the author visit, and I’m rather sad about that.
    • 5/5
      BkC10) KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler: Excellent!!I still agree with myself. And what better review for Valentine's Day than this time-travel novel in which a modern-day African-American woman is summoned by her slave-owning ancestor to rescue him at critical moments, and then must pimp her slave ancestress to the slave owner to ensure that she is born?The Book Report: Kinda spoilered that above, and there's the basic plot in a nutshell...time travel, ownership of humans, personal morality versus survival versus the endless mutability of human emotion. You know, the Big Questions.My Review: Oh my heck. Modern African American, circa 1976, makes her way in the slave society of 1815, and all that that entails. It's not an easy, fluffy read, but it's amazing how Butler pulls no punches and still manages to keep the easy, smug path of good = noble, bad = horrible, from making her characters into masks capable of expressing only one emotion. I liked reading the book because it pulls no punches, and it left me breathless at frequent intervals with its complete willingness to engage all, each, every, facet of human love. Octavia Butler, gone too soon, wrote this meditation on survival when she was abour thirty. What a feat that is. So young, and so sharply critical of denial and misdirection...so ready to face up to the underlying motivations and the foundational lies of each and every character's identity...what she must have been like as a friend! Her insights would be Buddha-like, if they were anything like the honest and unsparing insights she used in creating this book.Beautiful, hard, fiery. Like a diamond, it will cut anything you can show it.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books ever! Octavia Butler is a master storyteller and I'm so sorry she's no longer with us.
    • 5/5
      An astonishingly powerful book. In California in the 1970s Dana, who is black, is married to Kevin, who is white. They've just moved into a new home together when Dana spontaneously slips out of her body. She finds herself by a river and promptly saves the life of a boy, Rufus Weylin, found drowning in it, but is mystified when his father, arriving, pulls a gun on her. Then she's back home again. The second time she's pulled away she again finds herself just in time to save Rufus's life; it doesn't take her long to discover she's travelled back to 1819, back to Maryland during the slave era. Although Rufus is reasonably accepting of her, he assumes her to be a runaway slave; his parents and their circle are less friendly, regarding her as an uppity nigger who could cause havoc unless kept firmly in line. Once again, Dana finds her life threatened and escapes back to her own time.

      A pattern soon emerges. Dana is drawn to 1819 Maryland whenever Rufus's life is in danger; she can escape only when in fear for her own life. And each time her timeslips to the past -- one of which drags Kevin with her -- become near-exponentially longer. Furthermore, the experiences are real. When she returns from saving Rufus from drowning, she's still wet on reaching the 20th century. If she's been whipped, her back still bears the wounds . . .

      In short, she learns at first hand the full horrors of slavery. The enormous triumph of tyhis novel is that it imbues one entirely with the atmosphere of this claustrophobic hell in which every last tic of behaviour must be carefully controlled for fear of inspiring the irrational, sadistic fury of the community's psychopathic overlords. I was inevitably reminded of David Lindsey's 1992 thriller Body of Truth, set in Guatemala during the worst of the CIA-sponsored human-rights abuses there, which I read in the 1990s but still remember with fear, and of J.R. Dunn's 1997 book Days of Cain, like Butler's a strongly moving time-travel novel, this one with a "real time" set in Auschwitz, which I read just a couple of weeks ago: it struck me that there wasn't a whole lot to choose between these two historical Holocausts, except that one lasted a whole hell of a lot longer than the other.

      I can't imagine I'll ever forget Kindred. I'm certain I'll read it several times again.

    • 4/5
      I liked this book but didn't love it like I thought I would.First complaint: It reminded me of a book that I would have had to read in high school and then been forced to do a report on. Just didn't like that "schooly" feel that I got from it. Second complaint: Dana and Kevins relationship didn't feel real to me. Their dialogue between each other seemed forced, short and not necessarily how a newlywed loving couple would interact. Dana showed more emotions towards Rufus than her own husband.I give it 3.5 stars overall. Its a fast easy read and I'm glad I read it